Constitutional Theocracy / / Ran Hirschl.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP eBook Package Archive 1893-1999
• VerfasserIn: Hirschl, Ran,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2010]; ©2010
• Year of Publication: 2010
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (314 p.)

In this ground-breaking book, renowned constitutional scholar Ran Hirschl describes “constitutional theocracy,” a new, hybrid form of government that has emerged from an overlapping of two parallel trends during the 20th century: the rise in political religion on the one hand and the spread of constitutional forms of government to most countries in the world on the other. Hirschl delivers two blockbuster theses: That in most constitutional theocracies, 1) courts are the primary secular agents of government, and 2) the electorate usually has a choice between a secular party that is against redistribution of wealth and a more theological party that supports redistribution. This last thesis, especially, will be news to many of the book’s American readers, who are accustomed to a theological politics stridently opposed to redistribution.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- 1 The Rise of Constitutional Theocracy -- 2 Constitutional Theocracy in Context -- 3 The Secularist Appeal of Constitutional Law and Courts -- 4 Constitutionalism versus Theocracy -- 5 Courts as Secularizing Agents in the Nontheocratic World -- 6 Yin and Yang? -- Conclusion: “Glocalization”? -- Appendix: Cases and Laws Cited -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index